


The Promise

by OfEndlessWonder



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, but everything will work out in the end, it's a little angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5924889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfEndlessWonder/pseuds/OfEndlessWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kara swallows again, and Cat can feel the beat of her pulse in her neck against the palm of her hand, frantic and wanting. It’s the way that Kara bites her bottom lip that undoes Cat, the flash of white against pink skin, and in the morning she’ll blame it on the alcohol but she’s never felt more sober as she allows herself a taste of something that she’s wanted for so long she can barely even remember when it began." AKA what might have happened (in my dreams, anyway), if Bizarro had kidnapped Cat instead of James.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm baaaaack.  
> Much like Contemptress, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but also much like Contemptress, it kinda got away from me, so I've split it into three parts. The second will be posted on Sunday, and the third on Tuesday.  
> Hope you guys enjoy it :)

_I see you,_   
_And everything around you fades,_   
_And I can't speak._   
  
_But you can never know what it is you do to me._

* * *

 

Cat's standing on her balcony with a glass of scotch when it happens. Adam is gone, and Cat can remember clearly the way his eyes had shone with unshed tears as he'd told her that, without the promise of another date with Kara, he'd be leaving town. He'd sworn that he’d come back to visit, but Cat had barely heard him.

Because she has a problem, and that problem is Kara Danvers. Her awkward, bumbling assistant had somehow (Cat has no idea _how_ , is disgusted at herself for letting it happen), crawled under every single one of the sky-high defences that Cat had put up all those years ago when she'd gotten her heart broken by her ex-husband.

She'd barely dated since him, married and dedicated herself to her work, instead, and that had been _fine_ until Kara had come along with her sunny disposition, her bright smiles and those hideous cardigans, the perfect assistant that Cat had always wanted but had known she'd never find (except she had, because Kara had it all and _damn_ her, damn her to hell for doing this to her, to reducing her to _this)._

Cat had fallen, and she'd fallen hard, but she'd bitten back her feelings by keeping Kara at arms length, repeatedly calling her the wrong name, making increasingly ridiculous requests and never, ever allowing herself to step over the careful line that she'd drawn in the sand between them.

Except Kara had started to push back, to edge that line further and further back until it was at Cat's feet and Kara was stepping over it, and Cat felt like she couldn't breathe. She remembers the first day she'd known, with a deep rooted certainty in her gut that she would never recover from this, that Kara had well and truly wormed her way into Cat's long-cold heart – it was when she'd stood up to Cat for the first time, yelling at her in her office and on that day, Cat had seen a fire in Kara's eyes that had twisted her gut in all the wrong ways.

And ever since then Kara has only grown braver, pushing and pushing – sending letters on behalf of her and God, Cat had been so furious that day but Kara hadn't stood for it, had looked her in the eyes and fought right back and Cat had looked up at her assistant as she sat behind her desk, towering above her and so, so unaware of the power she held over Cat, and known that she was definitely past the point of no return.

But then Adam had swooped in to save her, and Cat had pushed them together because Kara deserved to be happy, deserved to have someone who could make her happy in a way that Cat never could. She hadn't expected it to hurt as much as it did, seeing them together – she had felt a deep wrenching in her gut as she'd seen the awkward almost-kiss earlier that day but it wasn't her place to feel like that, wasn't her right to feel such deep, roiling jealously so she'd bitten her tongue and forced herself to brush it off like she wasn't falling apart on the inside and instead she'd rolled her eyes and walked away.

But now Adam was gone, and Kara was single once again, and Cat doesn’t know how to stand it, because her buffer is gone and she feels like she's spinning out control, Kara severing her tether to her sanity with one well-placed smile and Cat doesn’t think she'll ever be able to pull herself together again.

So she's on her balcony and a quarter of the way through a bottle of her favourite brand of scotch, her free hand dangling over the edge of the railing as she stares down at her city, a concrete jungle spread below her, when she hears the flutter of a cape and turns, surprised.

She hasn't seen Supergirl since the disaster of accusing her and Kara of being one and the same (Cat still has her doubts, a whole list of them, but Kara doesn’t want her to know (which stings, more than a little, but it's not like Cat can't take it), so she bites her tongue and just rolls her eyes whenever Kara mysteriously disappears only for Supergirl to appear on news footage sometime later (it stings knowing that Kara must thing she's a dense idiot not to notice the co-incidences, too)), but when she turns she sees that it's not Supergirl's face staring back at her and she swallows thickly, taking a step backwards even as she realises with a sinking feeling in her gut that there's nowhere else to go, because Bizarro is standing between Cat and her only hope of escape, blocking the door to her office easily.

"Can I help you?" She asks, airily, trying to play off her fear, but she knows her heartrate spikes when the twisted creature in-front of her (Christ, what had _happened_ to her?) just smiles a terrible smile and takes a deliberate step towards her.

Cat supposes that she could cry out, or scream, but the offices are empty at this hour aside from a small handful of people, and the chances of them hearing her are small, at best. So instead she sets her glass down delicately and turns to face the other woman with a determined look on her face.

"Well?" She prompts, tapping her foot impatiently as she rests her hands on her hips. "Are you just going to stand there or are you - " She's cut off as Bizarro comes rushing towards her, arms wrapping around Cat's waist as she lifts them both into the air, and Cat can only let out a startled oomph before slamming her eyes closed, because she absolutely and completely abhors heights.

She clings on to the other woman desperately because there's no way in hell she's going to let her drop her, as they fly at an incredible speed over the city, the wind whipping through Cat's hair. She has no idea why she's being taken, but she's praying that this creature wants something from her and isn't just planning on taking her somewhere quiet to... dispose of her.

Cat has a lot of things planned for the week, and dying isn't one of them.

She's relieved when she's dropped unceremoniously to the floor in an abandoned warehouse, and she thinks that the restraints that Bizarro fastens over her wrists are a little much, because she's... a superhero (or supervillain, Cat supposes), whereas Cat is barely five foot and can't throw a punch to save her life. 

"Why are you doing this?" She asks once Bizarro has stalked away from her, shifting awkwardly as she adjusts to her arms being held over her head (it's not the first time she's been in this position, but usually it's a lot more enjoyable), curling her legs underneath her to support her weight.

"Supergirl hurt me," comes the soft reply. "So I'm going to hurt her." Cat chokes on a laugh, because she's definitely got the wrong person, here – Cat is nothing to Supergirl, even if she is Kara, nothing beyond her boss. The hobbit or James would be a much better choice to take her place.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you," Cat replies breezily, like she's not strung up waiting for something sure-to-be-awful to happen to her. "But you've got the wrong girl. Supergirl doesn’t care about me. She barely knows who I am."

"You're her boss." Cat's breath catches, because of all the ways she expected to have her suspicious confirmed, it was never like this. "But you're also much more than that."

"You're mistaken."

"No." Bizarro shakes her head violently, rounding on Cat with angry eyes. "There's a part of her in me. I know what she feels."

"And what does she feel?" Cat knows she shouldn’t ask, that it's wrong and disrespectful to Kara, that she'd hate her for asking but she can't bring herself to care about any of that when the tantalising possibility of knowing Kara's intentions are so, so tangibly close – she can worry about the consequences later.

"She loves you." Cat feels winded, the breath knocked out of her in one fell swoop, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears that it's a miracle she can hear anything at all. "So she'll come for you. And when she does I'll make her watch you die."

There's a manic glee in her eyes that makes Cat want to recoil, and she's suddenly desperate to get out of these restraints, to not let this creature use her to lure Kara into something dangerous. She has nothing to fight with, though, no way to free herself, and her struggles are futile.

"She's being a little slow," Bizarro murmurs then, watching as Cat wrenches her arms desperately, a dangerous edge to her voice as she stalks towards Cat, eyes flashing. "Maybe we should give her some motivation to get here a little quicker."

Cat tries to rear backwards as she sees her eyes begin to shine red, but there's no way of escaping, no chance of getting out of the way, and she tries desperately to bite her tongue as searing heat engulfs her, because if she doesn’t make a sound then Kara won't know she's been taken and won't rush in to save her, heedless of the danger.

Cat can deal with dying, here on this dirty warehouse floor, as long as she knows that Kara is safe.

But it's too much, the pain excruciating, and a scream rips itself from her throat before she can stop it, the agony making her feel like she's being ripped limb from limb.

She screams and screams, and then everything goes black.

x-x-x

Cat wakes up the sound of shattering glass, and Supergirl hurtling towards her at breakneck speed. She lands in-between Cat and Bizarro with bent knees, back to Cat as she faces her opponent and Cat wants to shout at her to leave, to get the hell out of here but her voice is raw from screaming and she doesn’t know if she can utter a word.

Supergirl (Kara, Cat reminds herself – it's Kara, her wonderful, perfect Kara, she'd been right all along) turns to glance at Cat over her shoulder, a worried expression on her face as her eyes skip over her body, checking for damage, and it's in that moment that Bizarro acts, throwing herself forward and colliding with Kara before Cat has the chance to warn her.

Watching them fight is terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Kara is magnificent, hovering in the air before lunging forwards, dangerous and deadly and every inch of the hero Cat's always known she could be.

Her heart is in her mouth the whole time, breath catching whenever Bizarro gets a hit in and forces Kara back, and she cries out when she sends Kara hurtling towards the ground, sending her spiralling into a stack of barrels.

She's only down for a second, bouncing back to her feet with renewed fury in her face before flying forward once more and Cat has to look away because she can't watch, can’t bear to see Kara in danger, can’t stand to see another one of Bizarro's hits landing against Kara's flesh.

"I knew you'd come for her," Bizarro hisses, and Cat glances up from where she's been resolutely staring at the floor to see that she has her hands wrapped around Kara's neck, squeezing tightly and she renews her efforts to escape even though she knows there's no hope but she can't... she can't just _sit_ here and watch the life drain out of Kara, knows she wouldn't be able to survive the experience.

"Take the shot, Alex," she hears Kara say in a breathless croak, and Cat looks around but can see no sign of a rescuer as Bizarro's hands flex and Kara's eyes start to flutter – she releases her, then, Kara dropping to the floor like she's made of stone, and Bizarro is in-front of Cat before she can blink, a hand wrapped around her neck, now.

She gazes up into black eyes and knows she's about to die, as those fingers tighten and begin to choke off her air, but she feels strangely at ease with it, because maybe, if she can hold on for as long as possible, maybe it'll give Kara enough time to get away.

"Alex!" She hears Kara scream, a wretched, terrible, desperate sound that makes Cat shudder before she feels Bizarro jolt, her mouth opening in a scream before she begins to fall backwards, her fingers releasing their hold on Cat's neck but the damage is done, her vision already blurring, and then she's floating, floating away, and in her dreams Supergirl's arms are wrapping around her and taking her home.

x-x-x

The next time she blinks awake, she's lying in a makeshift hospital bed.

The lights above her are bright, and she blinks blearily for a few moments as she tries to get her bearings, the unfamiliar beeping of hospital machinery immediately setting her on edge, as does the unfamiliar person in a lab coat staring down at her with curious eyes.

She rears up immediately and has to fight a wave of nausea as the movement sends a flood of pain through her, and she settles back against the pillows with a groan, raising one hand to her head and grimacing when she discovers that the source of the pounding headache she'd woken up with is a small bump on her temple.

"You hit your head when you passed out." She turns to see a woman she doesn’t recognise, dressed all in black with her arms folded across her chest as she observes Cat warily, as though she might bite.

"Where am I?" Her voice is a low croak, and she winces at the sound of it, and at the ache it sends through her – she dreads to think what state of bruising her neck is in. "And where is Ka-Supergirl." She catches herself just in time, but the other woman's shrewd eyes widen almost imperceptibly at the slip.

"She's recovering, too." She pushes herself off the wall and comes to stand by the side of Cat's bed as the doctor fiddles with the drip in Cat's arm. "Are you nearly done?" She asks him, and he nods before scuttling away, leaving them alone.

"I want to see her."

"I don't think either of you are in any condition for that right now." Cat opens her mouth to argue, but the other woman rolls her eyes and cuts her off. "Look, Miss Grant, let's get a few things straight." There's an authoritative tone to her voice that intrigues Cat, her back straightening a little as she raises an eyebrow, meeting her gaze head on. "I don't want you here." Cat blinks, surprised, but doesn’t interrupt. "I think it was a huge mistake bringing the Queen of All Media into the headquarters of a top-secret government agency." She widens her eyes slightly and glances around her once again, but she's in a nondescript room, even if it is a little bare. "But you needed medical assistance and I wasn't willing to face the wrath of my sister if I let you die."

She catches Cat's eye meaningfully and Cat nods, knowing that she's being trusted with important information. "Please don't make me regret bringing you here, and please, _please_ don't... don't do anything to hurt my sister, because not even she will be able to stop me from kicking your ass, got it?"

"Got it," Cat replies quietly, because she has no intention of outing Kara to the world and even less desire to expose a government agency that could probably wipe her from the face of the earth if they wanted.

"I'll leave you to get some rest. And I'll send her in when she's feeling up to it."

"Thank you, Agent..." She trails off, an invitation for her name, and the woman sighs before shaking her head.

"Alex."

"Danvers, I assume?"

She doesn't reply, only shoulders her way out of the room, leaving Cat alone with her swirling thoughts.

x-x-x

Cat asks for a phone and calls Carter while she waits, thankful that he's with his father for the week because she finds out later that she'd been unconscious for almost a day and feels sick about the thought of her son being alone – and even worse when she thinks about how ready she'd been to die, because what would Carter have done then?

She doesn’t tell him about her near brush with death, listens to him chirp happily about his week so far, his voice soothing the ache of her bones every time she shifts on the bed. Nothing's broken but she has a concussion and a couple of burns that aren't going to be easy to explain away along with the bruising around her throat, but all in all, Cat supposes that she's been very lucky indeed.

It's a few hours later when she gets the visitor she's been waiting for, Kara knocking lightly on her door before pressing it open and striding inside, looking a little scraped and dirty but otherwise unscathed – it's only seeing her in the flesh, seeing for herself that she's unharmed, that Cat starts to breathe easier.

"Miss Grant, I want to apologise," she starts as she steps hesitantly towards Cat's bed, fidgeting with her hands as Cat's eyes land on her – she watches her reach up to play with her glasses and smirks when Kara remembers herself just as her fingers brush her cheek, arm falling limply back to her side. "What happened to you - "

"Wasn't your fault," Cat interrupts. "Kara - ” She flinches violently at the sound of her name, and Cat sighs quietly when she sees the fear in her eyes.

"Miss Grant, I thought we discussed this, you're mistaken - "

"No, I am not." Her voice is quiet but certain, and her eyes are unwavering as they stare into stormy blue. "I... understand why you lied to me. I don't agree with it, but I understand it, but don't you dare try to lie to me again. Cat Grant is nothing to Supergirl other than a mere acquaintance, but to Kara Danvers I'm..."

"Everything." She says it quietly, so quietly that, if not for her brief conversation with Bizarro, Cat would have thought she'd misheard her. “It is my fault that you’re in here, Miss Grant. She wanted to hurt me, and she used you in attempt to do that. I put you in danger, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“What do you mean it won’t happen again?” She asks sharply, not liking the tone of the girl’s voice one bit.

“I… There’s someone here, in this building, who knows who I am, and I don’t think it’ll be long before he leaks it to the press, and then everyone I know will be in danger. You’ll be in danger. So I’m – Kara – going underground. I won’t exist anymore.” Cat feels her head start to spin, her heart beating loud in her chest because no, this isn’t supposed to happen – she isn’t supposed to lose Kara when she’s only just beginning to know her. “I haven’t been careful enough, and you could have died because of it. Because of _me_.” Her voice breaks, along with Cat’s heart at the sound of it, and she longs to reach out to reassure Kara but she’s standing out of Cat’s reach and she doesn’t trust her legs to hold her weight if she gets out of this bed.

“Kara, I don’t blame you for this.”

“How can you not?” Kara’s eyes swirl with guilt, and Cat swears she sees tears shimmering there, too. “If you’d never met me then - ”

“Then my life would be incredibly boring, and I would’ve cycled through a great many more assistants.”

“Still. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

“I’m not. You came to save me.” She remembers the look on Kara’s face as she’d crashed through that window – fear and terror and anger, her beautiful avenging angel. “Kara, I - ”

“I have to go,” Kara mumbles, and Cat is thankful that she’s glancing towards the door, clearly listening to a conversation on the other side, so she doesn’t see her face fall. “I… I only came to let you know why I wouldn’t be at work on Monday. I really am sorry.”

“Kara - ” She calls out before Kara leaves, desperate to snatch just a few more moments with her (they haven’t discussed what Bizarro had told her, Cat hadn’t had a chance to tell her how much she cares about her – she can feel the time they have together slipping through her fingers like water, and is powerless to do a thing to stop it), but she doesn’t even look back as she leaves the room, though Cat swears she hears a single, quiet sob before the door shuts behind her.

x-x-x

Cat is having a terrible week.

CatCo had very nearly crumbled during her unexpected two days off (she’d had to practically wrestle Alex Danvers out of the way in order to leave the DEO, the other woman insisting she should wait another day but Cat couldn’t stand lying in that bed in that place after Kara had left her, mind spinning and haunted by blue, blue eyes), and she’d been working tirelessly to meet their many deadlines since she’d returned to work that Monday.

To make matters worse, her new assistant is so incompetent that she’s already threatened to fire him six times (and counting), but really, how difficult was it to get her coffee order right when it was the same every goddamn day?

It doesn’t help that she’s not in the best of moods in the first place, thanks to the one and only Kara Danvers. Cat sits at her desk and she’s surrounded by her – she can still see her, at the desk that Cat had purposefully left empty for her, or within Cat’s office, sitting on one of her couches, or on the balcony where so many of their significant conversations had taken place.

She’d thought that it would be difficult, seeing Kara every day when she was dating her son, but this? This… not knowing where she is, what she’s doing, if she’s okay or even if Cat will ever see her again? It’s torture.

So she takes out all her anger and pain and frustration on those around her, until her employees only dare enter her office if it’s an emergency, and when they do she has the perverse joy of watching them fidget uneasily in-front of her, constantly on edge and waiting for her to snap.

It’s the way they flinch when she yells at them that gives her the most pleasure, or the way they skitter away as fast as their jellied legs can take them.

One poor bastard actually collides with the glass wall of her office, mistaking it for the door that she’d purposefully left open so the rest of the bullpen could hear her tirade about… well, she can’t even remember what it was, exactly (she’s had a lot of rants over the past few days), but she’s sure it was important.

It’d taken her assistant an hour to wipe the imprint of the employee’s nose off the glass, and three hours for the man himself to be seen in the ER for his concussion.

She doesn’t finish at CatCo until late on the Friday night, the rest of her workers having disappeared earlier in the day. Carter is with his father for the weekend on some fishing trip, and even though Cat had argued with his father about it over the phone because he was supposed to be with her for the full week, she was actually kind of glad, because it meant that she could drink herself into a stupor without worrying that her son would see the aftereffects in the morning.

She finishes the bottle of scotch she’d started on that night when everything had changed – it felt so long ago but really, it’s barely been a week and Cat can’t believe it. But she’s survived it, she’s survived a week without Kara and maybe she could survive a life without her, too.

Except if she’d really made it through unscathed she wouldn’t be out here drinking expensive scotch alone on her balcony on a Friday night, and she’d stopped caring about putting on a brave face and pretending that everything was okay the second the last person had left the office for the day.

She’s barely able to sleep, adding to her ill temper – whenever she closes her eyes her mind flashes back to that night, to heat and fire and the smell of burning flesh (Cat has no idea what they’d treated her with at the DEO but her burns are almost all gone, leaving her with barely a scratch), and unbearable, all-consuming agony, and she wakes in a cold sweat, hair plastered to her forehead and her heart racing, and even the sleeping pills her therapist had given her hadn’t been able to do a thing to help her.

She’s been to see him almost every day – she thinks he must be sick of the sight of her by now – spends a significant amount of time screaming at him because he’s supposed to _help_ her, he’s supposed to help her forget about those sunny smiles and flowing blonde hair and bright eyes but every time she closes her eyes she sees Kara’s face and she just wants to _forget_ because god, that would easier.

Most of all she feels pathetic, because she’s Cat fucking Grant and she shouldn’t be reduced to such a _mess_ just because of a _girl_.

But she’ll allow herself this one night, this one night to drink herself into oblivion away from prying eyes, one night to fall apart and tomorrow she can being the laborious task of trying to put herself back together again.

Her eyes begin to grow heavy as she curls up in her chair, the sound of the city, blaring all around her, strangely soothing even though it should be jarring. She tips her head back to finish her fourth glass of scotch and then when she’s done she lets her arm fall limply down at her side. She shivers despite the warmth in her gut, the scotch still burning at the back of her throat, the night air a little chillier than she’d been expecting.

She must fall asleep, because the next thing she knows there’s a girl in red and blue and gold standing in-front of her, but when Cat reaches out to touch her she morphs into something else, something darker and dangerous, and her eyes glow red and Cat is screaming, screaming, screaming –

“Miss Grant!” Cat flinches awake at the sound of her name, eyes blinking open to see Supergirl leaning over and she flinches away, cowering back in the chair because whenever she blinks she sees fire. Kara frowns, face falling as she releases the hold she’d had on Cat’s shoulder and takes a step back, fidgeting with her hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay.” She knows she can’t lie and say that she was no such thing – her reaction had been far too visceral for that. Her heart is still racing and chest feels tight like she can barely breathe, and she wonders distantly if she’s starting to have a panic attack.

“Are… are you alright?” Kara’s eyes scan across her face and Cat scoffs.

“What a stupid question, Kiera, of course I’m not alright,” she snaps, and she feels her stomach twist uncomfortably when Kara flinches at her tone.

“Is there… is there anything I can do to help?”

“I thought you were supposed to be staying away from me,” Cat replies haughtily, shaken by Kara’s sudden re-appearance and by her seeing Cat so vulnerable, desperate to keep her at arm’s length if she can.

“I heard you screaming.” Kara’s eyes turn dark, haunted, and Cat wonders if she’s remembering that day, if she’s remembering the sound of Cat being tortured. “And I had to check on you.”

“Well, thank you for your concern, Kiera,” she watches the way Kara’s eyes harden at the use of the name, “but I don’t need you to… hover.”

“I have nightmares, too.” It’s a quiet admission, Kara’s voice almost carried away by the wind. “I never used to like being alone after I woke up.” Her eyes are still haunted, and Cat hates the fact that she’s right – when she wakes up at home she pads down the hall to Carter’s room and stands in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps for long, long moments – but the thought of letting her walls down even further, of letting Kara crawl even further into her heart and her mind… it terrifies her.

“Yes, well, you and I are not the same.” She shoves herself to her feet but she sways, the alcohol from before still coursing through her veins, and she would have probably fallen back into her chair had Kara not caught her with a gentle arm around her waist.

Cat stares up at her, so close that she feels like she could drown in those eyes, lose herself and never come up for air but god, what a way to go. She can feel the strength of Kara’s arm at her back, in the hand that steadies her at her hip, and she’s drunk on the scent of her perfume and shampoo, never mind the scotch, finds herself breathing the girl in.

She sees Kara’s eyes flicker to her lips and she feels longing course through her, a desperation to reach up and tangle a hand in her hair and bring their mouths together, to pour out all her fears and her worries and her frustrations in a kiss that she’d feel all the way to her toes but she doesn’t dare, because she’s already too far gone but once she knows what it feels like, to have Kara’s lips moving against her own?

God, it’d ruin her.

“Is… How… how has everything been here?”

“Awful.” Cat wonders if Kara’s cut off all contact with James and the Hobbit or if it’s just her, curses herself for caring about the answer. “Your replacement is an idiot.”

“You said the same thing about me when I started,” Kara points out with a soft smile, and this close, it leaves Cat breathless.

“Yes, but when I was talking about you I never meant it.” She’d seen something in Kara that she’d failed to see in every other assistant that had come before her. She’d withstood everything Cat had thrown at her with a smile on her face and it taken her a mere two days to decide that maybe this one would be for keeps.

She wishes she’d never hired her at all.

(Okay, so maybe that’s a lie).

“I really am sor - ”

“Stop apologising, Kiera,” Cat sighs, wearily. “It’s tiresome.” Kara’s eyes are watching her closely – Cat isn’t sure she likes the scrutiny, wonders if Kara can see the bags under her own, wonders if she can guess how many sleepless nights Cat has faced since they’d last seen one another, and wonders if she feels guilty, thinking she’s the cause of them.

“Sor - ” The word dies in her throat at the pointed glare Cat throws her way, and it’s only then that Cat realises that she’s still encased in the comforting warmth of Kara’s arms. “Do you need help getting home?”

Cat glances at her watch, eyes widening slightly when she realises the time – her drivers will be long in bed by now, and the thought of hailing a cab makes her shudder, as does the thought of spending the night here.

The thought of Kara’s arms holding her tightly as she lifted them both into the air also makes her shudder, but for a very different reason indeed.

“I don’t want to inconvenience you, Kiera, I’ll manage.”

“It’s not an inconvenience, Miss Grant,” Kara is quick to reassure her, and there’s an almost eager look in her eyes that Cat thinks should be quashed immediately (even as it does make her stomach flip). “I’d… I’d feel better knowing that you were home safe.”

“Very well, then.” Cat rolls her eyes like this is inconvenient for _her_ , but Kara doesn’t react – she only brings her other arm around Cat’s waist, crossing them at her back to ensure she’s got a firm hold before she bends her knees and pushes them upwards.

Cat lets out a slightly undignified squeak at the feeling, her arms lifting to grip at the back of Kara’s neck. It’s so very different from the last time she was in this position – she’d been filled with terror the last time National City had been flashing by beneath her, certain that she was flying towards her impending doom.

(And maybe this time isn’t so different, after all, because she can feel every inch of Kara pressed up against her in that ridiculously tight suit, can hear her steady breathing close to Cat’s ear, can feel the heat of her skin beneath her fingertips, her hair occasionally brushing against the back of Cat’s arms and making her skin tingle pleasantly).

It’s over all too soon, Kara lowering them onto the balcony outside of Cat’s bedroom, and although Kara’s arms drop from Cat’s waist as soon as their feet touch solid ground, Cat finds herself unable to unwind her own from around the other woman’s neck.

“Miss Grant - ” Kara begins, expression turning wary as she reacts to something she sees in Cat’s eyes.

“You don’t work for me anymore, Kara,” she points out, her voice a tone lower than she expected, and watches with interest as Kara swallows, hard. “You can call me Cat, if you like.” She doesn’t know what she’s doing – she feels like she’d left the rational part of her brain at CatCo because right now she wants nothing more than to lean up on her toes and kiss Kara’s response from her lips, all her carefully assembled reasons for why that would be a Terrible Idea seeming so far away.

“Cat,” Kara starts again, and Cat struggles not to react to the way her name sounds, coming from her mouth, “I should really get - ”

“Tell me something,” Cat interrupts, watching as Kara’s eyes once again dip down to trace across Cat’s lips as she speaks, and she sees the almost imperceptible darkening of Kara’s irises when Cat’s tongue runs along the same path. “Why is it, that out of everyone in Kara Danvers’ life, Bizarro chose to kidnap _me_?”

She shouldn’t have asked, if the panicked look that flickers across Kara’s face is anything to go by, but she’s so close, close enough to touch (she still is, her hands curled around the back of her neck, fingertips digging into pliant skin, and she doesn’t understand how someone so soft can be unbreakable), and it’s been driving Cat mad all week – the fact that Kara might want her as much as she wants Kara.

It’s a dangerous thought, one that she should never allow to cross her mind except for in the darkest parts of the night when she was alone, never mind to be voiced _aloud_ , but she’s drunk (both on scotch and on Kara) and Kara’s _here_ and Cat doesn’t know when she’ll next be in-front of her like this.

So she asks even though she knows she’ll regret it in the morning, even though she already knows the answer because Bizarro had told her, she’d revealed Kara’s true desire but Cat wants ( _needs_ ) to hear it from Kara’s lips herself to make it _real_.

There had been a hint of it, that day in the hospital room (‘you are _everything_ ’ – a phrase she hadn’t been able to stop hearing since), but it wasn’t enough (it’d never be enough), and she needs more, she needs to know that Kara’s as affected by this distance she’d put between them as Cat is, needs to know that Kara cares because Cat doesn’t know what the point of this is if she doesn’t.

“I… I-I don’t know, Miss Grant.” Even though she’s dressed like Supergirl the woman before Cat in that moment is entirely Kara Danvers, and she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Don’t you?” Kara swallows again, and Cat can feel the beat of her pulse in her neck against the palm of her hand, frantic and wanting. It’s the way that Kara bites her bottom lip that undoes Cat, the flash of white against pink skin, and in the morning she’ll blame it on the alcohol but she’s never felt more sober as she allows herself a taste of something that she’s wanted for so long she can barely even remember when it began.

Kara lets out a quiet noise of surprise when she feels Cat’s lips against hers, freezes for one long moment, just enough for Cat to begin to doubt whether this had been such a brilliant idea after all but then god, Kara is kissing her back like the world will end if she fails to make Cat’s head spin and her knees go weak, and Cat decides that, no matter how much regret crawls into her heart and up the back of her throat tomorrow, it’ll all be so, so worth it.

She tangles a hand in windswept blonde hair as Kara’s find her waist, pressing Cat back against the glass door of her balcony. She hisses at the feeling of the cold glass against her, but is promptly distracted as Kara’s tongue slides into her mouth, stroking against her own and making Cat wonder just how wonderful that tongue would feel elsewhere on her body and she groans, arching against Kara and sighing when a thigh falls between her legs.

But the next moment Kara is gone, the warmth of her body replaced by cool air and Cat blinks her eyes open, confused, to find Kara standing with her back pressed against Cat’s balcony railing, breathing heavily as she shakes her head as if she’s trying to clear it.

“This isn’t… I can’t do this, Cat.” She sounds pained, and Cat’s mouth opens to ask her what happened but Kara is speaking before she gets the chance. “I’m sorry.” She takes one last look at Cat, still splayed against the glass, cheeks flushed and chest heaving, before she sets her jaw and looks away, and Cat knows that, whatever might have just happened between them is more than over now.

Cat blinks, once, and Supergirl is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s three weeks before she sees Kara again.

Well. She _sees_ her in that time, of course – emblazoned on the many screens of her office, always seeming to be there, haunting Cat in her periphery. She’s the perfect hero that Cat’s always envisioned, and crime rates in National City are at an all time low.

It doesn’t improve her sour mood, though.

She’s already on her third post-Kara assistant (the first had quit and she’d fired the next; this one is still incompetent but at least he can follow orders, and Cat will take the bare minimum, just for time being), and she’s starting to tire of the way that people quail before her right from when she steps off her private elevator in the morning up until she steps back into it to go home for the night.

She keeps a careful eye on the news, because Kara had said that her identity would soon be revealed to the world but it never comes, the story never breaks (really, Cat think she should get at least a 'thank you' for sitting on one of the biggest stories of her career, waiting for someone else to take credit for something she'd long ago figured out for herself), and each day that goes by without a mention of the name 'Kara Danvers' in the press just increases Cat's anxiety.

She's constantly on edge, and even Carter has noticed, in spite her attempts to be cool, calm and collected at home. Her sleepless nights don't ease, despite the increased dose of sleeping pills she's been prescribed, and she can barely remember how long it's been since she slept for more than a handful of hours.

It's the weekends that are the worst. When Carter's with her she spends them at home, but as soon as he's gone to bed she finds herself on her balcony with a glass of something bitter clutched tightly in her hand, and she casts her eyes around her and she remembers the feeling of Kara's mouth moving against her own.

Her balcony had always been her safe space, but now it, too, is haunted by the girl she can't seem to forget, Kara worming her way into every aspect of Cat's life until she can barely even blink without seeing the image of her face.

She's lying in bed on a Sunday night trying to distract herself with a book (it's awful, but that's kind of the point, she supposes), when she hears a crashing sound come from right outside the balcony doors.

It startles her, a hand clutching her chest as she feels her heart race beneath her palm, and she climbs uncertainty out of her bed, grabbing a robe from her closet and drawing it around her shoulders, knotting it tightly at her waist.

She peeks through her shades and lets out a quiet gasp when she sees a figure in blue and red sprawled, face-down on her balcony and unlocks the door with shaking hands, rushing outside and crouching down beside the unmoving woman.

“Kara?” She reaches out to shake her shoulder and is flooded with relief when she lets out a little groan. “Kara, are you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” comes the mumbled reply, before Kara shifts, pushing herself (with a great deal of difficulty, Cat notices), so that she’s sitting upright. “Sorry about the crash landing but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay in the air.”

“What happened to you?” Her suit is dirty and torn, her hair messy and matted, but it’s the bloody scratches that Cat can see on Kara’s cheeks and neck that have her the most concerned, because Kara is supposed to be untouchable.

“I had a run-in with an alien that was a little stronger than me,” she shrugs, like it’s nothing, like she’s perfectly okay, like it’s _normal_ for her to fall onto Cat’s balcony in the middle of the night looking like death. “But I’ll be alright. I just need like, five minutes to rest and then I’ll be out of your way.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Cat protests, because Kara looks exhausted, can barely keep her eyes open, and Cat’s not about to let her go flying off into the night in such a weakened state, doesn’t want to spend the rest of the night refreshing the news pages to see if Supergirl had crashed to the earth somewhere nearby. “You’re spending the night here.”

“Miss Grant, I - ”

“I’m not letting you leave in this state, Kara.” Her voice is firm, but she can see that Kara still wants to argue, doesn’t allow herself to be hurt by how determined Kara seems to avoid her, no matter the cost. “You’re not just a danger to yourself,” she continues, “but to others as well. Imagine if you fell into the middle of a road and a car hit you, or into a building, or - ”

“Alright, alright,” Kara interrupts wearily. “I’ll stay.”

“Good.” Cat pushes herself to her feet and holds out a hand towards Kara when the other woman doesn’t follow. She tries to ignore the flutter she feels in her gut when Kara’s fingers tangle through hers as she hauls the girl to her feet, Kara’s thumb brushing absently across the back of Cat’s hand as Cat tugs her through her still-open balcony door, resolutely trying not to think about the last time they’d both been here. “I’ll get you something to wear.”

“You really don’t have to do that,” Kara tries to protest, and Cat eyes her warily as she sways when Cat releases her hand to turn to her closet.

“Nonsense, I’m not having you dirtying my sheets with that filthy suit.” She doesn’t have much in the way of clothes that will fit Kara but eventually she finds a pair of loose-fitting shorts and a tank top that she sometimes sleeps in, handing them both over without a word before turning her back, waiting for Kara to change.

The rustle of clothing is very distracting (as is the angle of the mirror on Cat’s vanity – she can see Kara moving in it out of the corner of her eye, the display of bare skin so, so tantalising but Cat doesn’t dare turn to look at it fully, just curls her hands into fists and lets the feeling of her nails biting into her palms distract her, staring resolutely at the wall opposite).

“Um, where should I put these?” Kara asks, and Cat turns to see that she’s gathered her suit and cape in her arms, nods over to the laundry basket in her closet.

“Just in-case Carter comes snooping,” she explains quietly, and Kara nods before doing as she asks, and Cat tries not to be distracted by her sinfully long legs, left exposed by the shorts, or by the thin strip of skin left bare between where the tank top ends and the shorts begin.

“Where’s your guestroom?” Kara asks then, and Cat realises that she’s been staring, eyes fixed firmly on Kara’s legs and she forces her gaze to remain steady as she raises her head to meet her eyes, smirks when she sees the slight blush that stains Kara’s cheeks.

“You can stay in here.” Kara’s mouth opens to protest, and Cat sighs. “None of the guestrooms are made up, and it’s not like I’m going to be using my bed anyway – _someone_ may as well get a decent night’s sleep in here.”

“Still having trouble sleeping?”

“I won’t be far if you need me,” Cat refuses to answer the question, already edging towards the door. “Do you need me to call anyone for you, or…?”

“No, but my sister might call looking for me.” Cat nods, once, before closing her hand on the doorhandle and pressing it open. “Thank you, Cat,” Kara says quietly just before she steps into the hallway beyond, her eyes bright despite her obvious exhaustion, and her expression so sincere that it makes Cat’s heart ache.

“Goodnight, Kara.” She slips from the room before she can say anything stupid, closing the door quietly behind her.

And maybe she sneaks a glance back inside a couple of hours later, but it’s just to check that Kara’s still there, that she isn’t having one of those nightmares she’d told Cat she’d been prone to the other night.

She knows it’s a bad idea even as her hand pushes the door open, as quietly as she possibly can, but she’s never quite been able to control herself when it came to Kara – she let her push back, she let her get under her skin, she let her into her head, and she doesn’t see why now should be any different.

The image of Kara, sprawled out across Cat’s bed, on-top of the covers with half her back exposed by the way her shirt’s ridden up, her eyes closed and face relaxed with sleep, is one that Cat knows will stay with her for a long, long time to come.

x-x-x

“How come you’re not dressed?” Carter asks her the next morning, squinting suspiciously at her over his bowl of cereal. “Am I early?”

“No, sweetheart, you’re not early.” She ruffles his hair affectionately as she passes by him on the way to her coffee machine, reaching for the pot she’d made earlier that morning and pouring herself another mug. “I’m not going into work today.”

“Oh.” She’d decided that this morning, when another cursory peek into her bedroom had found Kara still fast asleep – she found herself loathe to disturb her by getting ready to face the day, and Cat thought that she (along with her entire workforce) could benefit from her taking a personal day. “Why? Are you ill?”

“I’m fine, Carter.” He’s still looking at her with suspicion, this time over the rim of his glass of orange juice. “How about I come pick you up after school today and we’ll go and get something to eat, maybe go watch a movie?” Her only regret in building up CatCo is the amount of time it takes away from her valuable hours with her son – she barely remembers the last time she’d been available to get him from his school.

“Can we watch the new Star Wars film?”

“We can watch whatever you want.”

“Okay!” Carter practically beams, and Cat feels an answering smile tug at her own lips in response that widens when he hurtles off his chair to give her a quick hug before the doorbell is ringing with his ride to school and he’s off, darting away and barely remembering to pick up his backpack on the way. “Bye, Mom!”

“Bye, sweetheart, have a good day.” Once he’s gone the apartment feels colder, emptier, and Cat curls her hands more tightly around her coffee, still hot enough to burn and exactly the way she likes it. It’s not long before she hears the tell-tale sound of quiet footsteps padding down her hallway, and sure enough, when she glances up she sees Kara emerging into her kitchen. “You look like you’re feeling better,” she murmurs as soon as Kara’s in earshot, eyeing Cat’s coffee with a look of longing. “Help yourself,” Cat adds, sliding a clean mug over the countertop towards her.

“Thank you.” She lets out a content sigh when the steaming liquid touches her lips, and Cat reminds herself not to let her eyes linger. “I’m kind of surprised you’re still here.”

“I’m not in the habit of running off on other people without giving an explanation.” There’s a sharpness to Cat’s words and she knows she shouldn’t have said it as she sees Kara wince, but she’s been up all night awfully distracted by the image of Kara in her bed, mind turning their last encounter over and over again in her head.

“I… Look, about the other night - ”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Kara,” Cat sighs, already regretting bringing it up, the fact that she’s barely had six hours sleep over the past three days suddenly seeming to catch up with her, weariness settling in her bones. “I was drunk, and I did something I shouldn’t, and if we could both just forget it - ”

“I don’t want to,” Kara mumbles, unable to look Cat in the eye. “I don’t want to forget it. I don’t think I ever will.” There’s an almost wistful edge to her voice, and Cat longs to reach for her, to tilt her head upwards so that she could read the emotion swirling in her eyes. “I just… I want you to know that I don’t regret it. I don’t wish it had never happened.”

Cat knows what she _should_ say. She should say that she _does_ regret it because that would be easier, that would push Kara away from her once and for all, because right now she knows that they’re teetering on the edge of something and Cat doesn’t know which way she wants to fall, knows that she should put an end to… whatever this is before it can even begin.

But she _can’t_ because Kara has completely and thoroughly undone her, and that kiss had only re-enforced something she already knew: she wanted Kara, perhaps more than she’d ever wanted anything else in her entire life, and Cat Grant was not accustomed to not getting the things she wanted.

“Then why did you leave?” She asks, instead, because it’s been bothering her ever since it had happened, because she’d sensed in the desperate way that Kara had kissed her back that she’d wanted her, too.

“Because I’m dangerous, Cat.” She sounds small as she says it, finally glancing up from the mug in her hands and the pained expression on her face takes Cat’s breath away. “You’ve already been kidnapped and tortured just because I _liked_ you, do you have any idea what could happen if we ever became more than that? How much of a target you’d be?”

Cat has to admit, of the many reasons she’d come up with for why Kara had sprung so suddenly away from her like she burned, this wasn’t top of the list. She’d absently wondered if Kara still harboured some residual guilt for what had happened with Bizarro – and now she has her answer.

“Kara, you don’t know that - ”

“I do, Cat. I _do_. Even if you don’t date Supergirl, even if you date Kara Danvers – it’s still just a matter of time before someone figures it out. I was naïve before, to think that I was being careful and no-one would realise and it almost got you _killed_.”

“And yet I’m still here.” She takes a step closer to Kara, unable to stand the distance when she looks so lost. “I’m still here.” She reaches out with trembling fingers and takes Kara’s hand in one of her own, pressing it against her heart and knowing Kara can feel (and hear) it race when she brushes against bare skin. “I’m still alive.”

“Next time you might not be, and I can’t take that chance, Cat, I _can’t_. So many people that I loved have been taken from me and I can’t… I _won’t_ have to go through that again. It’s better for both of us if I just… go and you never see me again.”

“Better for who, Kara?” Cat demands, her hand tightening its grip around Kara’s. “Because it’s certainly not better for me – look at me. I’m a mess.” Kara opens her mouth to disagree, but Cat knows there’s no way she can – it shows clearly in her bloodshot eyes, the bags that are so bad that not even the best make-up artist in National City could hide them (Cat knows, because she’s _tried_ ).

“Because of what Bizarro did to you - ”

“Not just that,” Cat interrupts with a shake of her head. “You’ve given me just as many sleepless nights. You left, Kara, with barely a word. I didn’t hear from you for _weeks_ , every day I dreaded checking the news in-case something awful had happened to you, waiting for your identity to be splashed over all the front pages - ”

“That was taken care of,” she says quietly, something dark in her expression that makes Cat unsure of whether she wants to ask her more.

“Then why didn’t you come _back_?”

“Because it’s too _dangerous_ ,” Kara replies, and Cat’s really, really starting to loathe that word. “Yes, this threat is gone but that doesn’t mean there won’t be another one three months down the line.”

“Which we can deal with as and when it arises.”

“No.” Kara shakes her head, resolute, her hair swinging wildly around her cheeks. “ _No_. I’m not putting you at risk, Cat. Not because of me.”

“Let me decide what risks I am and am not willing to take.” Cat moves a deliberate step closer, backs Kara up against the kitchen counter – her palm is still against Cat’s heart, and as she presses closer Cat uses her hand on Kara’s wrist to shift her so that’s cupping her breast, instead, not missing the way Kara’s breath stutters, her eyes widening. “Let me decide whether you’re worth it.”

“You don’t know what you’re signing up for.” Kara’s voice shakes, her fingers trembling and her breathing rapid.

“Oh, I think I have some idea.” She leans forward, watching Kara closely to see if she shies away, and presses a barely-there kiss to the delicate skin of Kara’s neck, just above her pulse point – Kara’s eyes flutter closed, a soft noise escaping her throat, and the way her fingers squeeze at her breast has Cat’s back arching, leaving another, harder kiss in its wake. “Besides,” she continues, kissing her way up Kara’s neck until her voice is at her ear, “who said anything about dating, anyway?”

“You don’t want to - ”

“I never said that,” Cat pulls back with a huff, because she thinks she’s already revealed more of her true feelings already that day than she’d ever intended to. “And as much fun as it would be to show up at the next gala with Supergirl on my arm – if only to see the look on Lois’ face – I know you’d be rather reticent to the idea.”

“So you just want…”

“I want _you_.” She breathes that into Kara’s ear, letting a little of her need creep into her voice and is rewarded with a slightly strangled noise from Kara’s throat. “In whatever way you’ll let me.”

She leans back to watch Kara’s reaction, knows that she’s at war with herself, can see it in the way she chews at her bottom lip, her eyes flicking from Cat’s eyes and down to her lips and back, and she wonders whether it’ll be Kara’s rational or wanting side that wins in the end.

She gets her answer when, a moment later, Kara sets her jaw and kisses Cat so thoroughly that she forgets how to breathe, before she takes Cat’s hand and leads her to her bedroom.

x-x-x

Sleeping with a superhero isn’t something Cat ever expected to do in her lifetime, but God, is she glad that she’s gotten to have the experience.

Because Kara is… she’s magnificent. There’s no other way Cat can describe her. And she’d thought she’d seen her at her best that day when she’d swooped in to save her, thought that seeing her, in her element trading punches with a doppelganger in the sky, would be the greatest sight that she’d ever get to witness but oh, she’d been wrong.

She’d been so, so wrong because it pales in comparison to the sight of Kara spread out beneath her, looking up at her through dark, hooded eyes, or Kara with her head thrown back and her back arched, breathing Cat’s name as she came, or the sight of her kneeling between Cat’s legs with a smirk of wicked intent on her lips.

A part of her feels like a teenager again, sneaking around and trying not to get caught. Kara will appear when she least expects it, crawling into Cat’s bed late at night and waking her with the heat of her mouth and the slow, exploring touch of her fingers (Cat had never slept as thoroughly as she had that first day they’d slept together, Kara wearing her out late into the afternoon until her sister had called her away, and she’s barely had a single nightmare since).

Sometimes Cat will get a text when she’s at work, asking her to meet Kara on the roof (it’s really something else, to be driven to the edge by the mouth of her former assistant dressed in red and blue, with the view of the whole city before her, the last thing she sees before she closes her eyes and surrenders), or she’ll step into her elevator and find a caped figure slipping through the fire escape at the top, pressing the emergency button and dragging Cat’s skirt halfway up her thighs.

If her co-workers have noticed that Cat’s lips seem ever-ready to quirk into a smile (James had caught her humming once and he’d looked at with a look akin to horror on his face), that she’s relaxed enough to have only fired one person since she and Kara had started sleeping together (she’s even kept the same assistant, which, considering how much of an idiot he is, is really just a testament to how good Kara is with her tongue), or that she often comes back from unscheduled meetings with her hair mussed and her clothing askew (once she’d missed a button on her shirt – and once Kara had stolen her underwear and darted away with a wicked smirk), not a single one has dared to say a word.

And then one day she’s sauntering back into her office after a particularly trying meeting, made even worse by the fact that it’s been three days since she last saw Kara and almost twenty-four hours since she’d heard from her, and freezes when she sees Alex Danvers pacing up and down in her empty office.

“M-miss Grant,” her assistant – Jonny, James, Jack… she doesn’t even know – stammers as her notices the direction of her stare. “I told her not to go in there but she wouldn’t listen, I’m sorr - ” She doesn’t listen to the rest of his stuttered apology, only strides forwards before she loses her bravery because she’s sure that for Alex to be here un-invited something must be terribly, terribly wrong.

“Where is she?” She demands as soon as she’s through the door, just barely remembering to shut it behind her – she doesn’t need the whole of the bullpen to hear how distraught her voice comes out, tries to school her face into something neutral even as she feels dread coiling in her gut.

“She’s at the DEO.” Cat is grateful that Alex doesn’t skirt around the subject, turning to face her and shoving her hands into the pockets of her black jeans. “She’s… she’s not doing so good. She’s going to be okay,” Alex rushes out in response to something she sees on Cat’s face. “But right now she’s in pretty bad shape and she’s… well, she’s been asking for you.” Cat feels a tiny flutter of relief, because that means that Kara is at least awake, no matter how grave her health must be for her sister to be here in her place. “So I thought I’d see if you were willing to come.”

“Of course.” She wonders how much Kara has told her sister about the nature of her relationship with Cat – judging from the cautious way Alex is watching her, Cat thinks probably not a lot. “Let me just – _Jason_!” She turns her head and raises her voice for that, smirking as Alex winces, her assistant rushing into the office a moment later.

“Y-yes Miss Grant?”

“Clear my afternoon.”

“But you have the board meeting at two, and the meeting with Steve from - ”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupts, eyes flashing as she turns to face him, trying not to smirk at the way he cowers away from her. “Was I unclear? I thought I said: Clear. My. Afternoon.” She’s already doing damage control in her head – she’ll probably have to do a bit of grovelling to the board considering she’d been the one to arrange this meeting in the first place, but something Cat had learned a little while ago was that, much like Carter, Kara was more important to her than her work.

CatCo could go on without her, if it needed to, but Cat wasn’t so sure she could go on without Kara. Not unscathed, anyway.

“Y-yes, o-of c-course Miss Grant.” He hurries away and Cat rolls her eyes, turning back to find Alex watching her with an amused look on her face.

“What?” She asks as she strides forward to grab her handbag from beneath her desk.

“Nothing, I just… I always kinda thought Kara was exaggerating, with some of the stories she told me about you. Now I’m thinking not so much.”

“Yes, well, thankfully for her, your sister was a much better assistant than he will ever be. Now,” she moves away from her desk having collected everything she’ll need for the night. “Shall we?” Alex nods and makes for the door, and Cat falls into step beside her – she will not have her employees seeing her following someone like a lost puppy, especially a someone who looks as much of a government agent as Alex Danvers does dressed all in black, the only thing missing the gun at her hip.

There’s a car waiting for them outside, and Alex slides into the back of it and motions for Cat to join her. The windows are tinted black so that she’s unable to see out of them, much like the vehicle that had taken her to her apartment after her brief hospital stay in the DEO last time, and Cat thinks it’s a little ridiculous because if wanted to find where the DEO is based, she’s sure as hell that she could, no matter their levels of security.

“I want to ask you something,” Alex starts after a few moments of heavy silence, and Cat turns her head to find the other woman watching her closely. “About my sister.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to ask regardless of what I say,” she replies airily, not missing the way Alex’s lips twitch. “So go ahead.”

“She… she hasn’t told me anything, but I know she’s been seeing someone. And from the fact that you were the first person she asked for when we woke up and the look on your face when you saw me in your office, I’m going to guess that person is you.”

“How astute.” Alex doesn’t react to her frostiness (Cat wonders if all the Danvers are immune to it) – she abhors talking about _feelings_ , especially with someone she barely knows. But she’ll humour her, because she knows Alex is the most important person in Kara’s life.

“I just… I guess I just want to make sure that she’s okay. That you’re not just… another CEO having an affair with their assistant.”

“First of all,” Cat hisses, bristling at Alex’s words. “Seeing as neither Kara nor I were in a relationship prior to anything happening between us, there is no _affair_ involved.” She spits the word like it’s poison, and has the gratification of seeing Alex lean away from her, just a little, staring at her with wary eyes. “And second of all – and listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once and I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up again,” she pauses, taking a breath. “I care for your sister very much, and I have absolutely no intention of hurting her. I fear that out of the two of us, she’s the one who can do the most damage.”

That’s a thought she’s never shared before now. She knows, that if anyone took a look at the two of them, at her and Kara, that they’d immediately assume that she was the one that held all the power but God, they were wrong. Cat very rarely fell for other people, but when she did, she fell hard – Kara had knocked down every single brick in every single one of her walls one at a time, and Cat doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to rebuild them.

“She worries about you,” Alex murmurs, looking like she’s wondering whether speaking up is a good idea. “Ever since the thing with Bizarro she’s… she’s never quite been the same.”

“She’s not the same. Kara Danvers died on that day, and I think we both know that that’s affected her more than she’ll ever allow either of us to see.” She’s seen a darkness, a sadness in Kara that had never been there before things had changed – she’s careful to hide it when she’s around Cat but she still sees it.

When it comes to Kara, she sees everything.

“All she ever wanted was a normal life.”

“All she ever wanted was to help people,” Cat corrects, because she might not be fully away of the intricacies of why Kara had chosen to reveal her powers on that day, but she knows that Kara doesn’t regret any of it. “I saw that in her even before she became Supergirl.”

“But she wanted to treat it like a job. Come home at the end of the day to the people that she loves and leave the rest of it outside the front door.” It’s fascinating, for Cat to get an insight into Kara’s mind from someone else. She’s never talked about her with anyone else before, and certainly not someone who knows her as well as her sister would – the journalist in her is absorbing every word, committing it all to memory to draw on and ponder it later.

“She can still have all of that.” Cat says it quietly, her mind bringing her the image of her walking through her front door to find Kara and Carter within, chatting happily to one another as they made dinner and her heart aches, because she’d given up on that dream the day she’d left Carter’s father but now she craves it.

“But she thinks she can’t.” Cat is relieved that Alex doesn’t outright disagree with her – she wouldn’t have fancied her chances of persuading Kara of anything that her sister was opposed to. “Because of what happened. Because she almost lost you and she thinks it’s her fault and she never wants to feel like that again.”

“I _know_ all of that.” Cat brings up a hand to rub at her eyes the way she does when she’s feeling stressed, because hearing all of the reasons why Kara doesn’t think they can be together is _not_ something she needs reminding of, ever.

“And yet,” Alex continues, a knowing look in her eyes. “You’re still together.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily put it like _that_.” Alex makes a face, and Cat struggles to hide a smirk.

“You’re still together in some capacity – and I don’t need details because this is my baby sister we’re talking about – but my point is, she has all these reasons for keeping her distance but she’s broken every single one of them because you mean something to her. And maybe Supergirl can’t have the normal, perfect life but Kara Danvers can.”

“She’d never choose me over her powers.”

“No, but maybe she can more careful about using them.”

“She won’t listen.” Cat shakes her head, frustrated because she’s tried this line a hundred times before but Kara always shoots her down (lately she just rolls her eyes and doesn’t even dignify Cat with answer, tries to distract her with teeth and tongue instead).

“She might,” Alex shrugs, looking away from Cat’s gaze as the car begins to slow as smooth tarmac gives way to rougher terrain. She thinks it might be sand, but she’s not entirely sure. “This fight… I think it scared her. Made her re-evaluate what she wants.”

“And you think I’m one of those things.”

“I think you’re important to her. And I think she’s important to you, too.” Cat doesn’t answer, and Alex ploughs on. “My sister’s never been able to be herself around anyone she’s ever dated, and I’ve never seen her as happy as when she reappears from whatever rendezvous she’s been on with you when she thinks she’s being subtle, and I just… I want her to be happy, because God knows she deserves it.”

“You should be telling her this, not me.”

“I’ve tried,” Alex says dryly, straightening up in her seat as the car finally comes to a stop, Cat feeling a flutter of trepidation as she wonders what state she’s going to find Kara in. “And for the record,” Alex murmurs, just before she disappears out the door, “I think you deserve it, too.”

x-x-x

Kara looks pale and lifeless, lying on her back on a bed almost identical to the one Cat herself had been in the last time she was here. Her chest rises and falls weakly in time with her breaths though there is no medical equipment in the room with her – just her, and a single chair pushed into the corner.

“Oh, Kara,” she murmurs as she pulls the chair up so that it’s beside the bed, reaching out and taking one of Kara’s hands in her own. It’s almost cold to the touch, and Cat brushes a gentle kiss against the back of it. “What have you done?”

Alex had explained some of it to her before she’d let Cat in the room – Kara had gotten involved in a fight with another member of her race, and been attacked with some sort of mineral that was harmful to Kryptonians (Cat hadn’t really been listening at this point, having caught a glimpse of Kara through the tiny glass window set in the door of the room). She’d lost her powers, and they had no idea when (or even if) she’d ever get them back, and she was being treated by the sun’s rays in-between resting.

Cat let her fingers play with Kara’s as she watched her sleep, already itching out of her skin even though she’d only been there for a handful of minutes. She knows it isn’t exactly the same, but she’s always hated hospitals. There was just something about them (probably the sheer amount of germs contained within any given room) that she’d always despised, and although she’d been mostly able to swallow down her disgust the last time she’d been here, preoccupied by her injuries and doped up on medication, now there’s nothing to distract her.

She can only sit and wait, listening to the unsettling sound of Kara’s breath rattling in her chest, and hope that she’ll wake up soon.

She soon gets her wish – Kara’s eyes blink open just as Cat’s fingers are trailing lazily across her wrist and up her forearm, a wide smile crossing her face when they focus on Cat, leaning over her.

“Cat! You came.” Her voice is a little raspy, but her eyes are bright and she doesn’t sound too worse for wear, both of which Cat takes as good signs, letting out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

“Of course I came,” she murmurs in reply, fingers still brushing up and down Kara’s arm. “Kara, what did you _do_?”

“You should see the other guy.” She manages a weak smile, but Cat only narrows her eyes, unimpressed.

“You’re an _idiot_.”

“Yeah, probably, but I’m _your_ idiot.” Cat freezes, catching Kara’s gaze and just blinking slowly.

“You’re not my anything,” she says, quietly, when she feels like she can speak without her voice cracking. “As you keep reminding me.”

“Maybe I want to be.” She says it so, so softly, like she isn’t sure what Cat’s going to say (Cat isn’t quite sure, either, though she feels the words coil around her heart like the warm embrace of a promise, and knows that Kara, whether she knows it or not, will be her undoing).

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” Cat warns, a little sharply, but Kara doesn’t flinch at the words. She has to say them, though, to get them out before Kara distracts her with more words that Cat feels like she’s been waiting a lifetime to hear (because Kara has to know, that if she says them now only to take them back later, that it will crush her).

“I do mean it,” she replies, trying for confidence but failing when her voice wavers – it’s only slightly, but it’s enough for Cat to hear it.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Cat promises, because she _is_ going to bring this up again, but not with Kara like this. “When you’re not lying half-dead in a hospital bed.”

“I’m fine, Cat.”

“You’re _not_.” It wrenches out of her chest, deep and visceral because didn’t Kara know that she had to be careful? That Cat _worried_ about her every second of every day that she was out there in the skies, because Kara has a hero complex and Cat’s pretty sure she thinks she’s invincible and she may be the girl of steel but she’s not unbreakable, and doesn’t she know what it would do to Cat if something ever happened to her?

“Hey, hey, look at me.” Kara tries to move, to reach up to cup the side of Cat’s face but falls back on the pillows with a wince, settles for tightening her hold on Cat’s hand, instead. “I’m okay. I’m here, and I’m going to be okay.”

“You need to be more _careful_.” She’s pretty sure there are tears in her eyes but she blinks them away hastily, because she’s already cried in-front of Kara once, on a night on her balcony when she’d felt like her world was spiralling out of control and Kara was the only one who could fix it (and she had, and Supergirl may be the hero of National City but Kara Danvers had always been hers), and she has little intention of ever letting her see her cry ever again.

“I will, I will, I promise.” It’s another one that Cat is pretty sure she can’t keep, but she doesn’t question it, just nods and wipes at her eyes with the back of the hand that’s not clutched firmly in Kara’s. “Come here.” She pats the space next to her on the bed, but Cat shakes her head.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re like, barely five feet tall and weigh next to nothing, I think I’ll be fine.” Cat just stares at her for one long moment, and Kara pats the space again, and she rolls her eyes and lets out a huff before she rises to her feet.

She kicks off her heels and leaves them by the chair as she shuffles onto the bed beside Kara, curling up against her side with an arm slung carefully over her waist and a leg crooked over Kara’s knees. Her presence is as warm and reassuring as always, as is the arm she curls around Cat’s back to hold her close, her lips touching Cat’s forehead.

“You scared me today,” she admits quietly – it’s easier to voice aloud without Kara’s eyes staring into her own.

“I’m sorry.” Kara’s lips brush against her temple as she speaks, breath hot against her skin, and Cat closes her eyes and takes deep breaths and reassures herself that Kara is still here – she’s in her arms and she’s okay. “I will try and be more careful. For you.”

“You should do it for yourself,” Cat murmurs, breathing in the familiar scent of Kara’s skin as she allows herself to relax – she hadn’t slept well last night, too worried about Kara’s whereabouts and wondering if she was going to slip through her balcony doors late into the night, and her earlier exhaustion, chased away by the panic of seeing Alex, comes rushing back with force.

“You’re more important.” She says it so quietly that Cat doesn’t think she was supposed to hear it, but that’s what Kara gets for speaking so close to hear ear.

“What a stupid thing to say,” she scoffs, and Kara chuckles, her body shaking beneath where Cat lies.

“Go to sleep, Cat. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“ _You_ should be the one resting.”

“I will.” Cat won’t be around to find out, though – she can already feel the tendrils of unconsciousness wrapping around her and pulling away, though she swears, before it claims her entirely, that she hears Kara murmur three words. “I love you.”

She tries to mumble back ‘I love you, too, you idiot’, but she doesn’t think she quite manages it before she falls fast asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Kara improves slowly, though it's four days before the DEO is content to let her leave. Her powers still haven't returned, and Cat is sure that Kara should be more concerned about that than she appears, but whenever Cat brings it up she just brushes it off and Cat had long ago given up on pushing her.

"You're not going back to your apartment." That's the argument Cat walks in on when she arrives at the DEO after a long week at work (there's always a car there, waiting for her, no matter what time she finishes, and Cat doesn’t think she'll ever be able to suitably express her gratitude), Alex standing at the bottom of Kara's bed with her hands on her hips, Kara glaring up at her, propped up against her pillows.

"I'm not staying here for another night, Alex. I hate it."

"Well, tough, because I'm not leaving you on your own when you're powerless. You're a danger to yourself." Cat hovers uncertainly in the doorway, unsure whether she should just turn around and come back when Alex is gone, but something about the petulant expression on Kara's face makes her reluctant to leave.

"Why can't I stay with you?"

"Because I practically live here, and you know that."

"But - "

"I'm sorry, Kara, but it's safer for you here. We don't know if Max told anyone your real identity, and if anyone comes after you right now... you're vulnerable. At risk."

"She could stay with me." Cat speaks quietly, but both Danvers sister still jump, clearly not having heard her approach (she thinks she could get used to being able to sneak up on Kara).

"Miss Grant," Alex begins, and Cat can see from the look in her eyes that she's going to shoot her down. "That's very nice of you to offer, but then we'd just be risking you, too."

"Not if no-one knew Kara was with me, and she stayed out of sight until her powers return."

" _If_ they return," Kara murmurs quietly, but neither Cat nor Alex acknowledge her.

"I'd have to check with Hank..." Alex trails off, looking thoughtful, before she excuses herself from the room and leaves them alone, Cat striding forward and taking her usual seat at Kara's bedside.

"You don't have to do this, Cat." Her voice is small, like she's being an inconvenience, and it makes Cat huff as she reaches for Kara's hand.

"Nonsense, you're miserable here and I have an apartment big enough for ten." Kara still looks uncertain, and Cat rolls her eyes at herself for being so determined to placate her. "And it'd be a lot less inconvenient for me to visit you if you're in my bed instead of in the middle of a desert."

Kara's eyes brighten and Cat thinks that no matter what she has to do to see it, getting Kara to smile will always be worth it.

"Okay," Alex says as she returns to the room a few moments later, interrupting Cat catching Kara up on the latest CatCo news, Hank in tow. "She can go, but we have a few ground rules."

"One," Hank takes over, tone hard and leaving no room for argument. "Neither of you mention to anyone else – aside from your son, Miss Grant, if he's with you this week – that Kara is with you.”

“What about my nanny?” Cat interrupts, because the woman’s been a godsend these past couple of weeks. “She’ll probably see Kara there at some point, but I pay her handsomely enough for her discretion.”

“Fine,” Hank agrees with a curt nod. “Two, Kara stays out of sight at all times, and three, there are two DEO agents staged outside your apartment just in-case anything goes awry."

Cat itches at the thought of having someone she doesn’t know watching her so closely (she's always been a notoriously private person), but she glances at Kara's hopeful face and knows there isn't a chance that she can say no.

"Fine. I trust these agents will be competent enough to keep their noses out of my business?"

"You'll barely even know that they're there," Alex promises, though Cat very much doubts it. "Kara, you'll still have to come here for treatment once a day but we'll get you in and out without anyone noticing."

"Okay."

"We'll do one last one before you go." Cat pushes her chair back as a doctor appears to help Kara out of bed, despite the fact that she's capable by now of doing it by herself, and they disappear down the hall, leaving Cat alone with Mulder and Scully.

"A word?" Alex asks as soon as Kara is out of earshot, and Cat nods, stepping to one side as Hank follows Kara down the hall. "Without her powers she's... well, frankly, she's dangerous. I just think you need to be aware of that."

"Dangerous how?" Cat hadn't understood it when Alex had mentioned it before, and she still doesn’t now.

"To herself, and to others. Kara's not used to being human, she's not used to things being able to hurt her, or worrying about being careful doing the simplest of tasks. The last time she lost her powers, she broke her arm." Cat remembers that day clearly – the look of blank confusion in Kara's eyes when she'd sliced her finger open on a shard of glass, the way she'd appeared with her arm in a sling the following day, and a cold despite the fact that she was never sick.

"I see."

"So just... keep an eye on her, because she won't be aware of what will and won't hurt her. She'll burn herself if the water's too hot and cut herself cooking, hell, she'll probably manage to get a papercut from reading. She's pretty clumsy, for a Superhero."

"I have noticed that," Cat murmurs fondly – in the early days of having Kara as an assistant, she'd enjoyed seeing just how nervous she could make her, and had measured it in terms of how many things Kara had knocked over in Cat's office. "And I'll try to keep her injuries down to a minimum."

"Thank you." Cat inclines her head at Alex's gratitude. "There are a couple of things she'll need from her apartment – I'll swing by and drop them off at your place?"

"Yes, that's fine; I don't think I have enough clothes that'd fit her to last for more than a few days." Alex lets out a little chuckle before heading for the door, but Cat calls out just before she's out of sight. "Agent Danvers?"

"Yeah?"

"Her powers... How long will it take for them to come back?" It's something Cat's thought about, more than once this week, but she's never asked anyone but Kara about them.

"Honestly? I don't know. She's only ever lost them once before and that was only for a day but this... This was a bad fight, and I've never seen her so drained."

"But they will come back?"

"For the city's sake, I hope so."

x-x-x

"Mom, you'll never guess what happened in – Kara?" Carter's excited run-down of his day at school screeches to a halt as he notices that Cat isn't alone as she walks through her front door, and he stumbles to a stop in the entryway, blinking up at Kara with wide eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm going to be staying with you guys for a few days," Kara replies, crouching down so that she and Carter are eye-to-eye. "I mean, if that's okay with you."

She and Kara had debated, the whole car journey to Cat's apartment, what they should and shouldn't tell Carter about the nature of their relationship. They'd been careful to keep things hidden from him before, but Cat's not so certain they'll be able to do that with Kara always in such close proximity.

They'd agreed to just play it by ear, though if Carter asks them if they're together, Cat has no idea what she's going to say because they still haven't talked about it themselves, yet.

"Are you kidding?" Carter looks overjoyed by the news of Kara's extended stay. "Of course it is! This is going to be so much fun, we can play games and watch movies and - "

"Why don't you let Kara through the door, sweetheart, before you bombard her with a list of activities," Cat says dryly, ruffling his hair affectionately as she steps past him.

"Sorry, Kara," he says, sheepish, but Kara just grins, eyes sparkling. "Oh, can I give you a tour? I know you've been here before but you might have forgotten and if you're staying you need to know where everything is - "

"A tour would be great," Kara cuts of his excited tirade with a soft smile, and Cat's heart flutters when she sees how easily Carter reaches out to take Kara's hand to drag her down the hallways that Cat already knows she has memorised, because Carter has always shied away from physical contact and how at ease he is around Kara already astounds her.

"Nothing to report?" Cat turns her attention towards the nanny, who'd been clearing away dishes in the kitchen – Cat is grateful she'd found one she trusted and Carter liked, because she'd had to leave him with her for longer than she'd ordinarily like in order to make sure she'd been able to spend time with both him and Kara over the past week.

"Nope, he was as perfect as always. He’s made a start on his homework, and there are leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry. I would've made more if I'd known you'd be having company."

"That's quite alright, Stephanie – I wasn't expecting it myself." She casts her eyes towards where Carter is dragging Kara back towards them, still chattering away. "Thank you. For everything, but this week especially."

"It's alright, Miss Grant, you know I never mind watching him." There's a fond look on the brunette's face as she, too, glances towards Carter. "Though I fear I'm being replaced as his second favourite person."

"Don't worry, your job is safe. Kara doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to keeping an eye on my son." She raises her voice slightly, and though her tone is playful she has the joy of seeing Kara flush.

"That was one time," she defends, though there's a smile on her face as her eyes meet Cat's over the kitchen island.

"The _only_ time," Cat stresses, and Kara makes a face, her hands resting gently on Carter's shoulders.

"I'll get out of your hair, Miss Grant – I'll see you after school on Monday, Carter, and I suppose I'll see the two of you then, too."

"No doubt – thank you again, Stephanie." She nods before she takes her leave, throwing Carter one last smile over her shoulder before disappearing through the front door. "Are you hungry, Kara?" She asks, then, as the girl's stomach rumbles loudly.

"God, yes," she practically moans, and Cat's sure that her eyes glaze over for several long seconds as she remembers the last time Kara had breathed that exact phrase into her ear. "I haven't eaten proper food in days."

"Well, you can help yourself to anything around here." Cat indicates the kitchen with a flourish of her hand. "I'm not entirely sure what we have, but I'm sure we can find you something."

"I was, um, actually thinking about maybe ordering a pizza. I-if that'd be, you know, okay with you." Kara reverts to her usual, stammering self as Cat quirks an eyebrow.

"Because that classes as 'proper food', in your book?"

"Um... yes?" Cat holds her gaze for one long second before letting out a small huff and reaching for her phone.

"Very well. What do you want?"

"Pepperoni is good." Cat nods and brings up the number for her favourite pizza place (whenever she has a particularly trying day she murders a good pepperoni pizza), and orders, the cashier assuring her that they'll be there within ten minutes (so maybe she orders from there quite a lot, and maybe one day had been a bit snappish when she'd waited for almost an hour, and now they know better than to make her wait).

She sends Kara and Carter away to play games whilst they wait for the food, Cat taking the opportunity to slip off her heels and out of her skirt and shirt, opting instead for comfy sweatpants and a loose black shirt.

The knock at her front door comes quicker than she expects, but when she pulls it open it's to reveal Alex Danvers and not the pizza delivery guy she'd been expecting, a canvas bag thrown over one shoulder that she holds out towards Cat.

"Thank you," she says as she takes it, glancing over her shoulder when she hears the sound of light laughter echoing down the hall from Carter's room. "Do you want me call her? We've got pizza coming if you want some."

"Thanks, but I'm good. Duty calls." She taps the earpiece in her ear. "There's a DEO agent down the hall," Cat sticks her head out of her apartment door to find a guy dressed all in black perched on a chair next to the elevator, "and another two stationed outside. Here's the number you should call if anything happens," she hands Cat a piece of paper with two numbers scrawled over it. "And the one underneath is mine. Tell Kara I'll see her tomorrow to take her back in for treatment."

"I will." Alex nods before slipping away, and Cat pads back to her bedroom to deposit the bag of Kara's belongings beside her bed. She has a twenty in her hand when the next knock at the door comes, handing it over to the adolescent on the other side and taking the huge box in his hands in return. "Food's here!" She calls, smirking when she hears the two of them scrambling up from Carter's bed and into the kitchen, Kara looking at the food like it's her last meal.

Cat has to admit, she's impressed with the girl's appetite as Kara inhales four slices in the time is takes Cat to finish one.

"Careful," she murmurs into Kara's ear whilst Carter is distracted by something playing on the TV. "You don't have super metabolism anymore to absorb all those calories."

"I guess I'll just have to work them off another way." Her eyes run very deliberately down Cat's frame, a heat in them that makes Cat's heart begin to race.

"You're supposed to be recuperating."

"I guess you'll have to do all of the work then." Cat turns her head with an arched eyebrow to find Kara's eyes sparkling with mischief, lips close enough to kiss and sending a thrill of longing through her.

"Are you guys together?" Carter's blunt voice breaks the force of their stare, and Cat turns, surprised, to glance at her son, who's watching them closely – she hadn't expected Carter to pick up on this so soon.

"I..."

"What would you think if we were?" Kara rescues her, eyes on Carter's face as it scrunches up, considering.

"I think I'd like that," he says after a few moments of careful deliberation. "As long as you don't disappear like my Dad did." He looks away as he says that, voice small, and Cat winces, remembering how hard the divorce had been on him, her sweet, perfect boy, and she wonders if she'd been naïve to bring Kara here because maybe it would break Cat the day that she decided that she couldn’t do this anymore, but she could handle it, but what about Carter? What would it do to him?

"I'm not planning on it, buddy," Kara replies in a steady voice, even as Cat's squinting at the side of her head. "And even if..." She pauses, chancing a quick glance Cat's way. "Even if something did happen, you know you'd always be my number one, right?"

Cat swallows around the lump that appears in her throat, because Kara is so good with Carter, so effortlessly good, and watching them together makes her ache for a future with the two of them by her side.

But she doesn’t know if she can have that, doesn’t know what will happen when Kara regains her powers and goes back to being Supergirl – it’s been over a month since Kara Danvers had disappeared from Cat's life and now that she’s back Cat's already dreading the inevitable end where their bubble will shatter and they'll be torn apart once again, Kara remembering all the reasons she'd been so adamant they stayed apart.

"Excuse me," she mutters, because suddenly she can't handle seeing the two of them curled up next to one another on the couch sharing easy smiles, not when there's a part of her that doesn’t think it will last, and she clenches her jaw and blinks hastily as she feels tears begin to gather in her eyes, hurrying down the hall and into her bathroom before any of them manage to fall.

She’s not surprised when she hears a quiet knock on the door a few moments later, and despite her not saying a word she hears it creak open a moment later (her own fault, she supposes, for not locking it). Kara finds her with her hands curled around the porcelain bowl of her sink, leaning her weight forward and staring at her own reflection in the mirror.

“Cat?” She sounds uncertain as she hesitates in the doorway, before glancing over her shoulder and stepping inside. “What’s wrong?” Cat doesn’t turn around, and doesn’t answer either, even as she feels Kara step closer, the heat from her body against Cat’s back making her feel like she’s suffocating. “Was it… was it something I said? I’m sorry if I overstepped with Carter, I just - ”

“What are we doing, Kara?” It bursts out of her in an exhausted, ragged breath, her eyes closing as she tightens her hands around the sink, using it to keep her grounded. “What do you _want_? Because you can’t just waltz in here and tell my son that you’re going to stick around if you don’t _mean_ it. You can’t… you can’t promise _me_ you’ll be here if the moment you get your powers back you’re just going to rush off into the night and never look back.”

“Cat…” Kara trails off, and Cat doesn’t need to look at her to know that she’s chewing on her bottom lip and fiddling nervously with her glasses. She jumps when she feels warm hands slide over her wrists, gently prying her away from the sink and spinning her around – she opens her eyes to find Kara looking down at her with a tiny frown between her brows that Cat aches to swipe away with her thumb. “I want _you_ , I thought you knew that.”

“In what way, Kara?” She twines her fingers with Kara’s and lets their hands drop to her waist, clutching at her tightly. “Because I don’t know how much longer I can pretend that only seeing you long enough for a quick fuck every two days is enough for me.”

“I… It’s not enough for me, either,” she admits quietly, her eyes pained and Cat wants to curl a hand around her neck and kiss all of their troubles away but she knows that they need to have this conversation – _she_ needs to have this conversation. “I don’t… I don’t know what will happen when my powers come back – or if they come back. I don’t even know if I want them back.” She mutters that last part a little sullenly, but Cat starts shaking her head before she’s even finished speaking.

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t,” she sighs. “It’d make everything a hell of a lot easier, though.” Cat hums quietly in agreement. “Can we just… can we just enjoy these few days and pretend that we’re a normal couple? Just for a little while?”

“I _can’t_ if you’re just going to walk away from me at the end of it.” It’s hard for her to say, because the image Kara presents is so very tempting, but she knows that a break-up will be so much harder for her to bear if her mind is swimming with so many happy memories.

“I’m not, I… I don’t _want_ to walk away from you, Cat.” She sounds anguished by the thought of it, tugging her hands out of Cat’s grip and resting them on her waist, instead, and Cat finds her own trailing over Kara’s arms and draping over her shoulders. “I don’t even know if I can.”

“But when you’re back to being Supergirl I think you’re going to try.”

“I’m not.” Kara shakes her head vehemently. “I’m _tired_ , Cat. I’m tired of putting everyone else’s needs before my own, I’m tired of not being allowed to be happy, I’m tired of pretending that it doesn’t kill a piece of me every time I have to leave you. I want you, so much that it drives me crazy, and there are a million reasons why we shouldn’t be together but I don’t know if they’re good enough reasons to stay away anymore. But you need to think about them, Cat, because you’re the one at risk here.”

“I’ve already told you,” she murmurs softly, “to let me decide what risks I’m willing to take.”

“And what about Carter? Because if you’re a target then so is he.”

“I’ve thought about that.” She has – at length, because there isn’t a thing on this earth that she wouldn’t do to protect her son. “But I trust you to keep us safe. I trust you to be careful with your identity even if you don’t trust yourself and I know that if, God forbid, anything _did_ happen, you’d move heaven and earth to make it right again. I know what I’m signing up for, Kara. Do _you_? Because I’m not an easy person to be with.”

“I was your assistant for over two years, Cat,” she replies, her eyes sparkling. “I’m already well aware of that.”

“Well, then.” Cat feels her heart beat faster, feels like it’s soaring, feels like she’s getting the very thing that she’s wanted for so long (even as she’s telling herself not to get her hopes up because nothing is set in stone, and things can so easily change). “Now that that’s sorted – is there anything you want to do, now that you’re human?”

Kara’s smirk is wicked as she dips her head to brush a barely-there kiss against Cat’s lips, murmuring her next words against her mouth. “Oh, I can think of a few things.”

x-x-x

Cat stirs when she hears a quiet knock on her bedroom door later that night, blinks awake to find it being pushed slowly open, a dishevelled and half-asleep Carter peering into the room. “Mom?” He whispers as she pushes herself up so that she’s half-upright. “I had a nightmare.”

They’ve been a regular occurrence when he was younger but he’d grown out of them a few years ago – Cat blames her own recent night terrors for the resurgence of Carter’s.

“Okay, sweetheart, you can come in.” Cat’s relieved that she’d made a reluctant and worn out Kara tug on a t-shirt and some underwear before she’d let her fall asleep earlier (it turns out that one of the things she’d wanted to try was how many orgasms she could have before she actually passed out – Cat had thoroughly enjoyed _that_ experiment, almost as much as she’d enjoyed leaving a myriad of marks across Kara’s skin for her to remember the night by in the morning).

She shuffles backwards so that she’s in the middle of the bed, Kara sprawled out face-down with her head turned towards her, making enough room for Carter to slide in beside her. This had always been their routine when he was a kid – he’d wake up terrified and it was only Cat’s nearby presence that had been able to calm him down.

“Thanks, Mom,” Carter murmurs quietly once he’s settled under the covers, and Cat presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, turning to face him as she watches his eyes flutter closed, his breathing even out a few moments later.

Kara stirs beside her, shuffling so that she can throw an arm around Cat’s waist and draw her against her front, hand splaying across her stomach as her mouth rests against her ear. “Is he okay?” She asks, voice fuzzy with sleep, and Cat rests her hand on-top of Kara’s, dragging her fingers up and down her arm lazily.

“He’s fine, go back to sleep.” Kara mutters something unintelligible into her ear before doing just that, and it isn’t much longer before Cat joins her.

x-x-x

She wakes to find that Carter had managed to squish himself in-between the two of them sometime in the night, and opens her eyes to find Kara watching her over the top of Carter’s head. Cat itches for her phone on the nightstand, wants to take a picture of this moment to immortalise it forever – Kara’s sleepy eyes, her messy hair, and her perfect boy sleeping peacefully next to her.

“Morning sleepyhead.” Kara’s voice comes out a little hoarse, and Cat narrows her eyes at her when she sniffles a moment later.

“Are you _ill_?”

“No, I’m fi - ” She’s cut off by a sneeze, which startles Carter awake – Cat doesn’t know which one of them looks more surprised and finds herself chuckling. “Okay, maybe.”

“Your immune system is appalling.”

“Well it’s not like I get much chance to strengthen it.” She sniffles again and Cat rolls her eyes, turning to reach for the box of tissues she keeps on her nightstand and handing one to Kara without a word.

“Come on, Carter,” she says then, prodding him when she sees his eyes starting to slip closed again, noting the time on the clock on the wall opposite and marvelling at the fact that she’d managed to sleep until ten a.m. “Let’s go and make the patient breakfast in bed.”

“Okay! Do you like pancakes, Kara?”

“I do.” Carter nods and crawls to the bottom of the bed before darting from the room, Cat shaking her head as she watches him go.

“Be careful!” She calls, and gets merely a grunt in reply. She stretches and rolls closer to Kara, frowning when the other woman rears backwards when she goes for a kiss.

“I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Oh, please, you probably only have the weakest strain of the common cold and besides, I have the immune system of a twenty year old – I’ll be fine.” Kara looks like she wants to protest but Cat doesn’t let her, instead leans down and captures her lips in a deep, slow kiss, capturing Kara’s wrist in her hand when she tries to reach out to pull her closer because she knows that if she does, she won’t want to leave this bed anytime soon. “Hands to yourself, Supergirl,” she murmurs against her lips before she pulls away.

“Fine,” Kara pouts and Cat kisses it gently away before dragging herself away from Kara’s inviting warmth and reaching for a robe to wrap around her shoulders as she slides out of bed. “Are you really going to cook for me?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Cat asks, amused, turning to regard Kara with her arms folded across her chest.

“I don’t know.” She observes Cat with curious eyes as she props herself up against the pillows. “I guess you just don’t seem like the domestic type.”

“I’m full of surprises,” she tells her, and Kara grins as Cat slips through the doorway and pads down the hall. In the kitchen, Carter’s already got all the ingredients out, and Cat triples her recipe because if the pizza last night was anything to go by, Cat’s pretty sure that Kara’s going to put away at least six pancakes, probably more.

She makes a huge stack and Carter helps her carry them back to her room, along with a lot of maple syrup, two coffees, and an orange juice for him. Cat curls up next to Kara and Carter sits in-front of them, his back resting against Kara’s knees whilst he watches the TV.

Cat sips her coffee as she watches Kara devour eight, _eight_ , pancakes, having already eaten her fill whilst she was cooking them, and Kara catches sight of Cat’s disbelieving stare when she reaches for her ninth.

“What?” She asks, looking almost like a kicked puppy, her hand outstretched towards the plate with the last remaining pancake.

“Nothing.”

“It’s just going to go to waste if I don’t eat it.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Kara stares at her for another moment before shrugging and tugging it onto her own plate, polishing it off in three bites.

Cat is amazed.

x-x-x

She sentences Kara to a day’s bedrest as her sniffling gets worse and she develops a cough, shooing Carter from her bedroom to finish all his homework as she retires to her office to get some work done herself, with Kara promising she’ll get some rest.

She doesn’t find her sleeping, though, when she goes to check on her when she gets bored of drafting letters and designing layouts and reading articles. Instead she finds her sitting up in bed, the balcony doors open to illuminate her in bright sunlight, a sketchbook balanced on her knees that she’s frantically working in, face scrunched up adorably in concentration, the only sound in the room her quiet breathing and the scratch of pencil against paper.

Cat stands and watches her for a long moment, because she’s so, so beautiful and Cat can scarcely believe that she’s in her bed. Her hair has been pushed into a hasty ponytail, errant strands escaping from it and tickling at the side of her face, her glasses pushed high up on her nose. She’s wearing a baggy college sweatshirt but her legs are bare, and Cat finds herself transfixed by the sight of them, admiring the lines of red etched across her skin where her nails had dug in the night before.

Kara turns her head to the side as she sneezes, glancing up when she notices someone in the doorway, catching Cat staring. “Hey.” Her face lights up in a smile so wide her eyes crinkle at the corners. “How long have you been stood there for?”

“A little while,” she shrugs. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Kara so absorbed or animated in a task, is desperate to know what she’s working up but doesn’t know if it’s her place to ask. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“This _is_ me resting,” she counters, tapping her pencil against the page in-front of her. “It’s how I relax.”

“Can I… can I see?” Kara bites her lip but nods, patting the space next to her on the bed and moving closer to the centre so that Cat can sit beside her, holding the sketchbook towards her once she’s settled. Cat’s breath catches when she sees the drawing before her, can barely believe that Kara has managed to craft something so beautiful from just pen and paper in just a couple of hours.

It’s a sketch of her and Carter, from Kara’s perspective that morning. She’s captured it so wonderfully, and Cat’s fingers trace over the smooth lines of Carter’s cheek before she can stop herself, marvelling at the likeness.

“Kara, this is… this is amazing.” Kara, who had been fidgeting nervously after handing over her work, practically lights up at the praise, her eyes almost as bright as her smile.

“You really think so?”

“Yes,” she breathes as she takes in the drawing of her, and wonders if that’s how Kara truly sees her – she looks almost ethereal, and about twenty years younger than she feels, face relaxed in sleep. “Are there more?”

“That depends,” Kara says then with a shy smile.

“On?”

“On whether or not you mind me drawing you.”

“Not at all,” she replies softly, fingers already toying with the edge of the page. “Unless they’re unflattering, of course.”

“Impossible.”

“I don’t know,” she murmurs dryly as she turns the page back, “there are some extremely unflattering photos of me floating around out there.” The next sketch is Cat framed in the fading moonlight on her balcony. “Oh, Kara, these are wonderful.” There are a few landscapes mixed in with drawings of her, but she thinks that Kara definitely has a knack for sketching other people. She smirks when she comes across one of her spread out across a bed, heels still on but her shirt unbuttoned and her skirt pushed up her hips, and Kara lets out a tiny squeak and reaches forward to snatch the sketchbook out of Cat’s hands. “Kara _Danvers_ ,” she scolds, playfully as she leans away from her flailing hands. “I am shocked.”

“I – oh, god, you weren’t supposed to see that one, I forgot about it, can you just – I don’t know, pretend you never saw it?” Kara has flushed a delightful shade of pink, still trying lamely to take back the book as Cat continues to glance down at the vaguely pornographic sketch.

“Whose bed is this?” She asks with interest, because all of the other drawings had been of her in real places – her bedroom, the balcony here or the one at work, her office at CatCo – but she doesn’t recognise any of the surroundings in this one.

“It… Rao help me, it’s m-mine.”

“Yours?” They’d never been to Kara’s apartment since they’d started sleeping together, and Cat smirks as Kara turns an impossibly brighter shade of red. “When did you draw this?” She asks, then, amused, because she’s pretty sure it had been before this thing had started.

“Um, it was a few… a few months ago.” Cat arches an eyebrow, waiting for more, and Kara sighs. “You were wearing that skirt,” she glances down towards the drawing, “and it was like at least an inch shorter than the ones you usually wear and we had a meeting that day and it kept riding up your thigh when you crossed your legs and I just couldn’t stop _looking_. It drove me crazy – and I’m pretty sure I drove _you_ crazy because I couldn’t pay attention for more than five seconds.” Cat thinks she remembers that day – she’d sent Kara home early, thinking she was ill. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about it, you and that stupid skirt and I… I did a lot of daydreaming and I thought it might help me _stop_ thinking about it if I drew it.”

“And did it?”

“No, it made it worse,” she sighs, whilst Cat smirks, delighted. 

“And how often did my skirts distract you, Kara?” She riffles through the rest of the book before setting it down on Kara’s other side.

“A _lot_. You’re a very distracting person.” Kara’s eyes dance along the exposed lines of Cat’s collarbones before lingering at her breasts, tongue dragging along her bottom lip slowly, making Cat’s breathing stutter.

“You’re pretty distracting yourself,” she admits, doing a little staring of her own. “These legs,” she murmurs, reaching out a hand and dragging her index finger from Kara’s ankle and up to her thigh, watching her shudder beneath the touch. “And those arms – when they’re not hidden by hideous cardigans, anyway. And your hands,” she bites her lip as she trails her fingers across the back of Kara’s right hand, remembering exactly what those hands feel like running over and digging into her skin, what her fingers feel like curling inside of her. “And that mouth…” She trails off, distracted as Kara once again wets her lips. “I used to catch myself staring at it in meetings, did you ever notice?”

“No.” Cat’s glad that she managed to retain at least some of her subtlety, and then she’s thoroughly distracted by that mouth as Kara tangles a hand in her hair and brings their lips together, her other hand finding Cat’s hip and guiding her so that she’s kneeling between Kara’s spread thighs.

Cat’s own hands begin to edge beneath Kara’s sweatshirt, feeling the muscles jump beneath her fingertips as Kara parts her lips with her tongue, a moan of appreciation rumbling in Cat’s chest – that quickly tapers off as they hear a shout come from down the hall.

“Mom?!” Carter’s voice has them hastily pulling apart, Cat shifting so that she’s back at Kara’s side and running a hand through her hair as his footsteps come thundering down the hall. “Kara? Are either one of you any good at algebra?”

x-x-x

It takes four days, but Kara’s powers do come back.

In that time, Cat had gotten used to waking up beside Kara each morning (when the workweek had started and she’d had to set alarms for five thirty she’d gotten little more than a grumbled ‘please make the noise stop’ as a greeting), and falling asleep cradled in her arms at night. In-between they spent time with Carter – Cat would arrive back from CatCo to find the two of them curled up on the couch, watching the TV, playing games or reading together, and Cat knew that Kara was helping him with his homework, too.

It’s the kind of domestic bliss she thought she’d never have (she knows Kara had never thought she would have it, either), and on the day she wakes up to find Kara floating several inches off of the bed, Cat is filled with a paralyzing fear because, despite Kara’s reassurances in the bathroom the other night, she is certain that this will be the end of them.

But she swallows her fear and she instead she tugs on Kara’s wrists until she wakes, her eyes flying open and her arms flailing on either side of her as she drops back onto the bed like a stone. She exhales a long breath of cold air, and Cat shivers when she aims a quick burst of heat vision across the other side of the room, Kara squeezing her hand reassuringly as she does it.

“My powers are back,” she murmurs, stating the obvious, and Cat can only nod, not trusting herself to be able to speak around the lump in her throat; she doesn’t know whether Kara sounds relieved or disappointed. “I… I should go and call my sister.”

“You _should_ ,” Cat agrees, though she still reaches out for Kara in the dark, tugs her until she’s got a knee settled on either side of Cat’s hips, cradling her cheek in the palm of her hand. Kara stares down at her, expression unreadable, before she ducks her head and kisses Cat, hard and desperate and Cat refuses to let herself wonder if this is a goodbye.

She wraps her arm around Kara’s back, clutching at her tightly as she rocks her hips upwards, and Kara groans against her mouth, one hand dragging across Cat’s ribcage until she’s palming one of Cat’s breasts, thumb teasing at her nipple.

And then Kara’s head is raising, cocked to one side as she frowns, clearly listening to something from afar.

“I…” She glances down, looking torn as she meets Cat’s gaze and Cat sighs because she knows she can’t be selfish in this, needs to let Kara go, has always known that she wouldn’t be able to keep her here, with her, forever.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs quietly, brushing a thumb across a delicate cheekbone. “Go be a hero.”

“I’ll be back,” she promises quietly, pressing another darting kiss to Cat’s lips before scrambling off of Cat and out of the bed, but Cat doesn’t allow herself to believe it as she watches Kara, _her_ Kara, hair still mussed from sleep and Cat’s hands, a fading blue mark on the side of her neck left from the imprint of Cat’s mouth, transform into Supergirl in the time it takes her to blink. “I swear.”

“Be safe.” Kara nods, hesitating for just a moment as she pauses to take in the sight of Cat stretching in her bed, before she pushes the balcony door open and disappears into the cool night air, too fast for Cat’s eye to see.

She doesn’t manage to get back to sleep, even though she tries, and when Carter asks her where Kara is in the morning over breakfast, Cat wants to lie and say that she’s sleeping, but instead she says that she’s gone.

x-x-x

Cat spends the day watching the news cycles anxiously, searching for anything and everything related to Supergirl.

It had been a fire at a factory downtown that had torn Kara away from her that morning, and Cat watches the footage of her lifting seven people to safety before using her freeze breath to contain the fire so many times that by the end of the day she’s got every second of it memorised.

Kara also stops an armed robbery, stops a car from falling off a bridge and into the sea, and rescues a kitten from a tree.

And Cat doesn’t hear from her all day.

It’s stupid, for her to get annoyed about that (for her to keep checking her phone every five seconds until she orders her assistant to take it from her and hide it), but she _does_ and by the time six o’clock rolls around she’s more than ready to leave, seizing her handbag from her desk and stalking from the building, daring anyone to stop her (she usually stays for at least another hour, especially when they’re trying to hit a deadline like they are that week).

Carter is quiet over dinner, and brings out Settlers of Catan, Cat’s favourite game, once they’ve cleaned up, setting it down on the coffee table and regarding her with a look more serious than a thirteen year old should be able to give.

“She’s gonna come back,” he says, confidently, and Cat blinks at him, wondering when she’d become so damn astute.

“I wish I could share your certainty, sweetheart.”

“She will,” he nods, earnestly as he begins to set up the game, and it warms her heart because she knows he’s doing this to distract her. “She really cares about you, Mom, I know she does.”

Cat doesn’t have the heart to tell him that sometimes things are more complicated than that, so she bites her tongue and she tries to forget about Kara, if only for a few hours. She lets Carter think that she doesn’t notice that he’s letting her win every game that they play, or that he chooses her favourite movie to put on later that night as they curl up on the couch.

After he’s gone to bed Cat retires to her own, lying on Kara’s side and closing her eyes, the sheets and the pillows smelling so much like her that it makes her heart ache, and it’s ridiculous, that she can miss the girl so much when it’s barely been twenty-four hours since she’d last seen her, and she should have never allowed herself to become so content, so _used_ to Kara being here.

She’s almost asleep when she hears a quiet thud from outside, startles awake and raises her head when she hears the sound of her balcony doors sliding open. She stares as she sees Kara stepping through them, pulling it shut behind her and leaning back against it with a sigh.

She looks beautiful, framed in the moonlight that shines from behind her, even though her face is lined with exhaustion, her suit a little singed around the edges.

“You came back.” Cat can’t stop a little amazement from seeping into her tone and Kara raises her head at the sound of her voice from where she’d tilted it back against the glass, eyes bright as they land on Cat’s across the room.

“Of course I came back,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I said I would, didn’t I?” She pushes herself from the door and strips quickly out of her suit before stalking towards Cat, completely naked, her gaze heated. “I meant what I said in your bathroom, Cat. I want this.”

“Yeah?” The bed dips as Kara crawls up from the foot of it, coming to a stop when she’s hovering over Cat, one hand on either side of her head.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, before she leans down to kiss her soundly, and when she pulls back to breathe her next words, her voice is hot against Cat’s ear. “But if you still have your doubts, then let me show you just how _much_ I want this.”

And oh, how she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the ride! (And I hope it soothes some of the ache from this weeks episode - my poor baby Danvers sisters). Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments and kudos, you're all awesome.
> 
> I'm on tumblr (ofendlesswonder) if you wanna hit me up.


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